When I grew up, the video game was not invented yet. The home video game Pong did not come along until I was nearly in my teens. Al Gore had not invented the internet either. So, what did we do back then for fun? Besides dodging dinosaurs we had a lot of fun games that were played outside with other human beings. For those under thirty years old – outside is the place where that annoying sun glare on your computer screen comes from. I tried to remember as many games as I could but I know I have forgotten some since it has been a while…

Below is a list of games that I could remember playing and some of them I can remember the game and some I just vaguely remember the overall concept.

Four square – The idea was to bounce a small red ball between the squares without hitting the lines and to force your 3 other opponents to make an error. I played this a lot in 6th grade during recess.

TV Tag – This was a game of tag but if you could blurt out a name of a TV Program before you were about to be tagged you were off limits.

Crack the whip – This was a playground game or for a large group of people where you would link arms and then attempt to break the chain (or crack the whip) by running quickly in one direction and then stopping. Whoever lost contact with the chain of people linked was out of the game.

Red rover – I am a little foggy on this one but I believe this game was played with 2 groups of kids facing each other with arms linked from a distance of maybe 30 feet or so and when the other team called your name you ran over to their side and tried to break though. It went something like: “Red Rover, Red Rover let Jimmy Come over”

Hide and seek – hopefully this needs no explanation

I spy… you would sate that you see something and then other people in the room had to guess what it was. You had a limited number of guesses before the person would reveal what they “spied”

Pinch, punch, question or command – Each person would take a turn and elect one of the options. Great for boring rainy days since it was usually very mindless.

Shadow tag – This was a version of tag but you tagged the persons shadow for them to be “it”. Did not work well on cloudy days or on groundhog days when Phil did not see his shadow.

Kick the can – from what I recall this was like hide and seek but you would return “home” and kick the can before the person who was “it” could catch you

Monkey in the middle – This was played usually by 3 people 2 people keeping a ball away from another person i.e. the monkey in the middle.

King of the mountain – this is a game where a person would perch atop of small hill and fend off people trying to knock him off of the spot.

You can tell these games are a part of the reason that we did not have such a problem with childhood obesity back then. Most were physically active and played outside. That accomplished two things 1) You burned calories through the physical activity2) You were not stuffing your pie hole with chips, cookies and the like while laying on the couch staring at a TV or computer screen (or a smart phone screen)

I am sure i am missing some, can any of you old timers remember others I missed?.

I'm younger then you had both video games and those outdoor activities. Seemed to be the same amount of fat kids and weirdos.

We played War. Like a mix of hide and go seek and tag played with toy guns. Shooting a person meant they had to stand there and count to 30. I have no idea how we determined victory. Did this in a radius of like 3 to 4 houses. Dummies.

Flashlight tag.

Get in fights with other kids in the neigborhood.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

painting the strike zone on the school wall and pitching for hourss on end

Kickball

Red light, green light

Freeze tag

Marco Polo til the "doodie" came floating by

Spud

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

We played a game that we made up. We made Kenny climb up in a tree and the winner was the won who hit him with a rock. We only played once. I can't remember who won.

Volley Pig - In Chautauqua NY, there was a place where the bottom of the lake was all sand. It was easy to dig a hole really deep just using your feet. We would dig a hole and bury someone up to his knees. This left the water about mid stomach to chest high. This was the pig. The pig was able to move quickly in drastic directions and angles. Everyone else got balls of any kind and threw them at the pig who tried to dodge. We never did figure out a scoring system or any kind of winner, but the game had potential.

Fire Marshall Bill wrote:You and a few guys build a fort and stock it with snowballs then go attack another fort a few houses or even a block or two away..then retreat back to your fort and your arsenal of ice balls

Oh yes the ice balls and ice covered forts. I have brothers 8 and 13 years younger so even when I was well past the fort building age, I was able to pass on that wisdom.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

Lots of wiffle ball, we copied the stance and mannerisms of our favorite players. Bicycle racing for hours. Lots of road rash over the years, but we healed. Football games, until someone got creamed and went home. Field hockey with wiffle ball bats. Basketball, soccer. Usually it would end up in an argument.

In the winter, stat-o-matic sports, if they didn't sell it or we couldn't afford it, we made our own spinners or dice charts using stats off trading cards. We had fantasy football and fantasy baseball drafts long before anyone figured out to use real stats. Shoveling off the basketball court to shoot hoop until our fingers froze.

Then came the hand held games!!! Riding the school bus was never the same.

Now we have video games, nobody has to get off the couch unless it's to take a leak. Mad controller skills wins out over strategy.

Was a big wiffle ball guy as well. And driveway basketball. We'd keep insane hand written stats on both in spiral notebooks. Huge 2 on 2 summer leagues of both.

Football, basketball, and Marco Polo in my buddy's pool.

Pack up the backpacks and take the bikes on a summers day journey. Remember the freestyle bike fad was huge for a few years when I was young. Buying a Mongoose or a GX and then loading it with cool forks, pegs, brakes.

Snowball fights.

Getting some money and going to buy candy at the corner store. And stickers for my baseball and football sticker books.

Taking the RTA bus to Indians games.

Playing pool at Franks Billiards and watching Cavs games at the Ground Round, both in Willowick where I grew up.

Buying baseball cards and trading em.

Jarts. Bocce. Golf at the Sequoia, the old par 3 course in Mentor.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

My neighbor growing up would spend all of his money on rockets and rc planes every summer and we always ragged on him for not playing hoops and football with us. He flies private charters now for a living, does well, living his dream. Pretty cool.

We played alot of the same games mentioned above, but it got real when one kid in the neighborhood got a huge trampoline. Then we started to have 'king of the ring' tournaments when his parents went to work. Went about 5 months before some kid broke his leg and killed our fun. We also built a ton of forts in the sugar cane fields and pulled each other in broken power wheels towed from 4-wheelers.

"Dammit you piss me off. I f#ckin hate you and I hope you f#cking get killed by a rabid polar bear you douche bag."

Was a big wiffle ball guy as well. And driveway basketball. We'd keep insane hand written stats on both in spiral notebooks. Huge 2 on 2 summer leagues of both.

Football, basketball, and Marco Polo in my buddy's pool.

Pack up the backpacks and take the bikes on a summers day journey. Remember the freestyle bike fad was huge for a few years when I was young. Buying a Mongoose or a GX and then loading it with cool forks, pegs, brakes.

Snowball fights.

Getting some money and going to buy candy at the corner store. And stickers for my baseball and football sticker books.

Taking the RTA bus to Indians games.

Playing pool at Franks Billiards and watching Cavs games at the Ground Round, both in Willowick where I grew up.

Buying baseball cards and trading em.

Jarts. Bocce. Golf at the Sequoia, the old par 3 course in Mentor.

Think kids could get away with that today?

Playing putt putt at the old place on Brookpark Rd

Go Karts

buying up as money comic books as my Cleveland Press "salary" would allow.

biking up to P-town Mall and roam up and down the aisles of Kiddie City determinig the next toy we HAD to have.

Little League games at State Road Park and ice cream at Zero Zest after.

Crab apple fights

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

Quick story about those books. I remember sneaking into my brothers room and snagged a few of his stickers on the fly. I wasn't caught red handed but I cracked under close scrutiny. Since I could not be trusted to be truthful about which stickers I had taken, there ws only one way to solve it.

My old man took all of the stickers and gave them to my brother. I only got doubles. I was pissed and crying. It was totally unfair, right?

But it taught me a lesson. It must have been weeks, possibly months, before I stole anything again.

Ghost in the GraveyardPickle in the middleplaying with army guys in the sand box and blowing them up with lady fingersthrowing eggs at the mean neighbor's house at night/ TPingprank callsmarathon monopoly or risk games

Also, the summer everyone else got a Super Soaker I was left with dimestore water guns and seriously outmanned. I set the curve the next summer though, cause when everyone else's parents made them use their original super soakers, I rolled out with the new, backpack version and almost drowned a kid.

"Dammit you piss me off. I f#ckin hate you and I hope you f#cking get killed by a rabid polar bear you douche bag."

Erie Warrior wrote:Spud guns. I forgot about those. PVC pipe, grill igniter, White Rain and some taters. Broke a backboard with one once.

We made a tennis ball cannon out of tin cans. We cut the top and bottom out of 6 or 7 tin cans (not aluminum cans, I don't think they would work) and duct taped them into a column. The last one we knocked holes in the top, and one in the side near the bottom.

A little lighter fluid, hold the "cannon" while flexing your elbow to aerate the fluid, drop a tennis ball in, and hold a lighter to the little hole on the side. If you charge it up it'll send the fucker higher than you can see. It'll dent the hell out of the side of a car too...

You'd probably be arrested by Homeland Security if you did that today.

Dad still has a spud gun, we screw around with it when we go camping. Problem is taters are getting smaller and smaller, can't get a good seal...

Some of that stuff brings back memories...we used to hang out in the shadows at Shore Center near the old Fazio's store and wait for the bakery truck to come and then steal our fill of cinammon rolls and other pastries, We also lifted rubber balls from Gray or Leader drug also in Shore Center(for fast pitch off the wall at Erwine and Upson) by stuffing them in our tube socks and dashing. Later we did playboys that way. The railroad tracks at the top of E 260 were a source of continued entertainment, we discoverd the flares that were in the caboose and heisted those, often we would troop down the tracks to get to Euclid Avenue drive in and watch R-rated midnight movies undetected. We were a virtual crime wave, I am surprised we never got car bombed by Danny Greene.

That reminds me of chucking those pink spongy balls inside K Mart. Hitting signs hanging from the roof, hitting people 5 aisles up. Rolling them the length of the store. We only got thrown out once, at Gold Circle (another name from the past). That was for setting all the alarm clocks to go off a minute apart and turning up all the stereo knobs so when someone tried it, BOOM. Pretty lame stuff compared to hitting people with rubber balls.

They didn't care much for our tying a heavy sinker on fishing poles and having casting contests either. The collapsing pole we got stuck in the ceiling tile is probably still there.

This was a favorite of ours. Always stopped in WV on the way back from vacation to stop and pick up some M-80s and other stuff that was illegal in Ohio.

A lot of home run derby.

Had a 4-foot basketball hoop in my room so we played kneeball, full contact style.

Street hockey.

We were always doing various pro wrestling moves to each other and I'm still shocked none of us ended up permanently injuring each other. I basically dropped my buddy on his head when he slipped as I was trying to Tombstone him.

500

There were a lot of bats in the woods by my house and we discovered they really like tennis balls. So we'd throw them up in the air while others stood around with tennis rackets trying to blast the bats as they dive bombed the balls. Only hit a bat maybe 10 times but when it happened, it was awesome.